Love is Sweet – Chapter 29

Chapter 29 Waiting Alone 獨自等待 (2/2)

Author: Qi Zi

Translated by: lovexsweet

Translator’s Note: The last chapter cut off right in the middle of the scene and dialogue (remember, these divisions are pretty arbitrary, I’m just following the website for convenience) so I moved a few paragraphs to this chapter so it isn’t so out of place.  JJ and YS are still in the supermarket. 

This was actually a hard chapter to translate because I was worried that the humor and tone don’t carry over correctly.  The dialogue itself needed some editing, although as usual I’ve chosen to prioritize a more accurate and direct translation over a really smooth English reading experience. I’m personally just more comfortable with leaving awkward English than potentially lost or incorrect meaning, although eventually I do plan on going back and editing everything.  

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Jiang Jun believed in Yuan Shuai’s feelings and loyalty to her and she didn’t care about the flies and mosquitoes around Yuan Shuai, but some other people did. Within a few days, she received a call from her mother, who asked about Yuan Shuai and Liu Dan. Jiang Jun abandoned the shopping cart and walked aside, saying, “I know about this, he told me everything. It’s okay, I’ve seen that woman.”

Yuan Shuai leaned over, hugging her waist, and got close to the microphone.

“Mom, don’t worry, even if she’s as beautiful as a flower, if the cow dung* isn’t willing, nothing will happen.” Jiang Jun pushed him away, pinching him on his waist while she was at it, and walked to the side to continue persuading her mother to relax.  [T/N *hard to translate here but JJ is crudely referring to YS and saying that he isn’t interested in a relationship]

When she came back, Yuan Shuai was in the middle of picking out some steaks.  She threw the beef back into the freezer.

“We’re not going to eat this tonight.”

“Ah? Then what are we going to eat?”

Jiang Jun smiled at Yuan Shuai with extra tenderness. “Pan-fried Little Yuan Shuai.*”  [T/N* So 鞭 refers to the penis of an animal when served up as food, like a bull penis aka beef pizzle]

In the evening, the two of them faced off in the living room. Jiang Jun had a malevolent smile on her face. “Liu Dan. You know her.”

Yuan Shuai cocked his head and looked at her very seriously, thinking for a while before he replied. “That name is really familiar, is she your coworker?”

“She’s your mistress, the one that just a couple days ago wouldn’t stay off your body.” Jiang Jun cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders. “Her dad went around telling people everywhere that you’re about to become her family’s son-in-law.”

“Why, this kind of good thing, how come I don’t know about it.”

“Yuan Shuai, this is not good.” Jiang Jun was quite dissatisfied with this kind of dishonest attitude from him.  She picked up the fruit knife from the coffee table and shook it, “What, should I do it, or are you going to castrate yourself? Your choice.”

Yuan Shuai immediately jumped up and far away. “Don’t, it would be an injustice to involve a third party. I know Liu Dan, but my little brother* doesn’t, he’s been wronged.”  [T/N* 1. idiom; for every grievance someone is responsible, for every debt there is a debtor / when settling disputes one should not involve third parties 2. his dick]

“But he wants to.” Jiang Jun pointed the knife toward his most vulnerable place. “This old lady is going to give him a lesson him today and strangle the source of evil right in the cradle.”

“Don’t, don’t! I know I was wrong, really wrong.”

“Then what are you going to do about it later?”

“Next time I see her, I’ll give that girl two big slaps, one for me and one for my little brother.  To spread such rumors around, she’s not just trying to destroy my reputation, she’s trying to make me into a eunuch!”

“I’ll thrash you first.” Jiang Jun laughed and lightly slapped him. “Seriously though, you should see less of that woman.”

“Don’t worry.” He kissed Jiang Jun. “Baby, are you jealous now? Are you finally realizing how sought after I am?”

Jiang Jun deliberately put on a serious face. “Yes, exactly, so I have to give you a stamp.” [T/N the meaning is “mark you” (as mine), but you’ll see why I kept the word stamp in a moment]

“Where do you want to stamp me?” Yuan Shuai pulled Jiang Jun onto his lap, and his roving hands reached under her clothes.

Jiang Jun hooked her arms around his neck and made out with him for a while. She was just about to say, “How about stamping the little red book?”* when Yuan Shuai’s cell phone interrupted them with its ringing.   [T/N* This is a very important line to show readers what JJ is thinking. The “little red book” is the stamped legal marriage document in mainland China; you will often see celebrities announce their marriage with them holding their books, like Zhao Liying and Feng Shaofeng]

“Just ignore it.” His attention was fully concentrated on her and he was recklessly pulling off her clothes.

“You should answer it first.” Jiang Jun batted away his hands. “Getting a call so late at night, what if it’s an emergency?”

Yuan Shuai picked up the call in a bad mood. “Who is it? Oh, it’s you? It’s so late, what’s the matter?”

Jiang Jun picked up the fruit knife and started to peel the apple. Large pieces of the peel and huge chunks of the flesh went flying everywhere.

“If you’ve drunk too much, then take a taxi home, why are you looking for me? If you’re in danger, then call the police, the number is 110. If there’s a problem, I’ll go to your office tomorrow. Right now my wife and I are going to go rest!” Yuan Shuai hung up the phone and looked at Jiang Jun with a mournful expression.

“Go sleep.” Jiang Jun put the knife down and threw the apple, which had only the core left, into the trash can.

That night, she didn’t sleep well at all, but it wasn’t because of jealousy. She just vaguely felt that the appearance of this woman, along with her actions and conduct, had thrown her a little off track from her original plan.

It was impossible for her to go over to GT now and her relationship with Yuan Shuai would be made public sooner or later. If she really did go over, then he deserved the accolades from it, but in turn, any mistakes would implicate him too. Staying at MH was the best choice for herself. Even if everyone found out that Yuan Shuai was her husband, MH would not rashly mess with her. After all, the resources and clients that she had previously accumulated were more than enough for her to dominate in the mainland IBD market. Furthermore, she and Du had secretly started carrying out their plan for the new branch of the bank and the preparations were underway.  She had originally wanted to lay her cards down in front of Du as soon as possible and to tell him about her relationship with Yuan Shuai.  But now Liu Dan was involved, and not only that, they had lied to her before to tease her. Once Liu Dan went into a rage, it wouldn’t be a good situation for anyone. 

The department that Liu Dan worked for was responsible for the supervision of foreign-funded banks. Thus, the heads of the mainland branches of every major foreign-funded bank were all very eager to court these people and to serve them carefully. Although the approval documents and procedures for GT have already passed, they will still need Liu Dan at many different times in the future. Although Yuan Shuai doesn’t need to be afraid of her, he nevertheless still has to give her some face. Also, Jiang Jun knows that she herself will have to have dealings with Liu Dan in the future. If they dropped all pretenses now and ripped into each other, then there would inevitably be some tough battles to fight later on.

Although she has the backing of her grandfather and parents, this relationship cannot be used except as a last resort. Even if she does use those connections, the higher ups have policies in place and those lower down also have countermeasures to get around them.  If Liu Dan was determined to deliberately make things difficult for her, there were ways for her to do so.

The more Jiang Jun thought about it, the more depressed she became. When Liu Dan tries to steal away her man, she still has to grit her teeth and endure it. But why? It’s all the fault of this stupid man who put out a lure and yet didn’t know how to find someone a little easier to bully.

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It was almost ten o’clock by the time she woke up. Yuan Shuai had gone to work and was not at home. She leaned on the headboard of the bed to wake up and picked up the phone to give Du a call. The strange thing was that no one picked up the phone; this had never happened before. Puzzled by this, she thought of going online to check her emails, but unexpectedly found that she was locked out of her internal company email account and inbox, which she hadn’t used for a week.

Jiang Jun felt her scalp go numb, and an ominous feeling surged up. She logged in to her MSN account, which she hadn’t used for a long time. As soon as she went online, countless windows popped up at once, some from her clients and some from her coworkers, the majority of them asking about her illness. These sentences were full of ambiguous questions and inquiries. She quickly changed her status to invisible.

Something must have happened! she thought, trying to contact Du again, but still no one answered. She wanted to ask Yin Zhe, so she called the company’s switchboard. The moment she was connected, she changed her mind: “Please connect me to Ammy Song in Human Resources.”

“Hello!”

“Ammy, it’s me.” After saying this, Jiang Jun heard the sound of her gasp.

“Hello, Ms. Wang, your interview time is…” Ammy began to say some totally irrelevant things.

Jiang Jun listened calmly, then thanked her politely and left her new contact information.

Ammy called back quickly, seeming extremely anxious: “Where have you been? It’s been so hard trying to find you. Are you aware that something big is about to go down?”

“Is MH is going bankrupt?” Jiang Jun tried to lighten the atmosphere, pretending to be relaxed and joking.

“All of your files have been retrieved for review, and all of your colleagues in the IBD department have been called up for questioning by the higher ups. Juno, the rumor is that you’ve been giving insider information to GT, that you gave them client data, and apparently there’s even evidence to prove it.  The US headquarters has sent someone over here and now even Du is in trouble.”

“I see.”

“Juno, I believe in you, you have to be careful and keep in touch.”

“Thank you, can you help me pass a message to Jay from our department and tell him to call this number at his convenience?”

Yin Zhe’s phone call came quickly: “Where are you?” He seemed furious and was roaring into the phone.

“I know everything already, where is Du?” Jiang Jun said.

“The US side has sent people over, Du is dealing with them, and hasn’t been able to contact you this whole time. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, tell me the current situation.”

“I’ll take the afternoon flight over there, can you get to the airport? We’ll talk there.”

“Okay, call me before you take off.”

Jiang Jun pulled the client information from her backup and called up the important clients one by one. These people have all been working with her for a long time and have great trust in her, so her disappearance naturally caused some panic. After all, she was familiar with the business operations and the core data of these companies. Jiang Jun was honest about the reason behind her leave of absence. Everyone was relieved and at the same time, couldn’t help but ask after her well-being warmly and solicitously. She chatted with them as usual about business, about work and personal matters, and about everything going on in the world. She also unobtrusively revealed to a few of her female clients, with whom she had a close relationship and who had high status in their world, the news that someone in the company was trying to suppress her. Her tone was aggrieved and her voice trembled slightly.

After making the last call, it was almost dusk. Jiang Jun looked at her watch, she had another hour before Yin Zhe’s flight landed. She took a sip of water and walked into the bathroom, her expression in the mirror a little twisted. She sneered at the mirror and said, “Want to kick me out of MH? Fine, when the time comes, let’s see who makes who cry!”

For the first time ever, Jiang Jun drove to the airport by herself, in her just purchased new X5, which was lightning fast on the road. She arrived in no time at the café in the airport and ordered a glass of juice. While calling Du, she reached out of habit to pull out a cigarette. The phone was turned off and the cigarette was not there, which made her remember that she had cleaned out her stock a few days ago in order to quit smoking. Jiang Jun beckoned for the waiter to help her buy cigarettes and a lighter. 

She had just lit up when Yin Zhe arrived, and like a drug addict, snatched the cigarette from her hand, taking in two deep breaths. Jiang Jun was a little amazed to see him wearing a shirt covered with wrinkles and his newly thinner chin covered in stubble, and she thought to herself, “A good boy has learned to be bad.”

“Blue Mountain.” He sat down across from Jiang Jun but ignored her and only spoke to the waiter.

“Get him the same as me, apple juice.” Jiang Jun stopped the waiter.

“Okay, then just apple juice.”

“Cut the crap and tell me, what evidence of my collaborating with the enemy has fallen into MH’s hands?”

“Only Du knows what the evidence is, and I only know that it was supplied by someone over at GT.”

“How’s the situation now? Can it still be kept under control?” Jiang Jun’s heart beat rapidly a few times, and she quickly changed the subject.

“It’s very troublesome, but Du should be able to handle it.” Yin Zhe sighed and scratched his hair, “If we had known it would come to this, we should have done things more drastically from the beginning and thoroughly cleaned house several times. It’s better to kill one by mistake than to miss one.”

“We didn’t know it earlier. Besides, this kind of thing can’t be totally eliminated, we have to clean it up later. Listen, I can’t do anything right now. Can you handle the few projects that are starting soon?”

“Don’t try to run away, they’re your projects and you should manage them yourself, I don’t have time.” Yin Zhe looked at Jiang Jun, peeved. “I can help you do it, but you can’t just ignore everything, even throwing out your phone. It must be really nice to be the shopkeeper ordering everyone else around to do the work, while living leisurely.”

“I’m still your boss and you’ll do whatever I tell you to do.”

“I’m still not going to do it, what are you going to do about it?” Yin Zhe stared at her, his face flushing red.

Seeing his totally bloodshot eyes, Jiang Jun didn’t want to argue with him. “Okay, fine, you’re amazing, I’m afraid, okay? Let’s go, I’ll take you to the hotel and treat you to dinner to apologize.”

“I don’t have time.”

Jiang Jun was a little mad. “Are you done yet or what? I’m offering you an olive branch but you’re throwing it away.* After so many years, how is it that you haven’t improved at all!” [T/N* idiom about offering a way out of an embarrassing situation]

Yin Zhe’s eyes suddenly reddened around the rims. “I really don’t have time, I have to take a flight back to Hong Kong in an hour and a half.”

Jiang Jun was stunned, feeling uneasy and a little ashamed of herself.

“Then let’s go to the basement floor of the airport, there’s a restaurant there and we can just eat whatever.”

Jiang Jun took him to the noodle restaurant beneath the airport and told Yin Zhe about the next step in her plan as they ate noodles.

“Your move is really ruthless. Even if the higher ups believed those things, they still wouldn’t dare to do anything to you. After all, those important clients are only willing to give you their accounts.” Yin Zhe raised his eyes to look at her while gulping down the noodles. He seemed to truly be very hungry and he soon finished even the soup, and even polished off the cold cucumber side dish.

“Are you still eating?” He pointed at Jiang Jun’s noodle bowl, where she had taken only a few bites. “Why do you still eat so little?”

Jiang Jun pushed the bowl to the side. “I have no appetite.” The noodles were terrible, not chewy at all, and the soup was seasoned with MSG.

Yin Zhe just brought over her food and ate the bowl of noodles as a matter of course.

Jiang Jun pouted a little and pretended not to see it, and continued to explain to him the problems that she wanted him to pay attention to.

When boarding time came, she went with Yin Zhe to the entrance to send him off. “Du doesn’t know that you came to Beijing to see me, right?”

Yin Zhe bowed his head. “My brother doesn’t want you to know about these things, he wants to settle it by himself. I can’t do anything but wait around like an idiot. Jiang Jun, I just wanted to come see you and do something for you.” 

Jiang Jun patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you, you’ve done a lot, and you have to trust in Du, he’s your brother. Go inside. The most important thing for you right now is protecting and keeping your own position in MH.”

He walked in without saying a word, and Jiang Jun turned to leave.

With confidence in her heart that there was a solution, Jiang Jun drove very slowly on the way back.  There was nothing to worry about on the MH side. The so-called evidence should be the recommendation letter than she had written and the few accounts that had been lost. The letter had been written by Jiang Jun after careful deliberation, and would never be of any value. As for the projects that had been stolen away, that had nothing to do with her.  

At first, she did indeed want to go to GT, but whether or not she wanted to resign from MH was her own business. If she was determined to leave, no one could make her stay, but now Jiang Jun didn’t want to go. They wanted to take her down and kick her out? Dream on! She believed the situation would soon turn to favor her side; the key was the person who gave the letter to MH.  It couldn’t be Sally, so who was it? For someone to get ahold of the letter, they had to be close to Yuan Shuai.  If that person could stir up such a big mess out of it, they must also have a lot of influence, who could it be? Would there also be a threat to Yuan Shuai?

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T/N: I hope you guys are still enjoying this novel, I always try to update sooner and more frequently, but I do get so busy!  If you guys have suggestions or come across typos or mistakes, please point them out, it helps a lot when I’m editing. Thank you for all your support, I really appreciate all the comments letting me know you guys are reading!